Table of contents for May 2023 in Total Guitar

“The best Metallica album of the century.” That’s what TG contributor Jenna Scaramanga excitedly announced of the band’s latest release 72 Seasons following her VIP listening session in London in February. Of course, Metallica have a distinct sound thanks to an arsenal of recurring techniques and harmonic approaches that feature throughout their music. But, despite the existence of a definite Metallica recipe, the band’s mixing bowl of creativity is still being stirred, if you see what I mean. Now into their fifth decade, Metallica are not resting on their laurels. In this month’s exclusive interview, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett tells TG of the incredible energy the band felt upon reuniting after the Covid-19 lockdowns. He also speaks about the rhythmic improvisation at the heart of his solos on 72 Seasons,…

Of all the guitar heroes that have come and gone, Gary Rossington was among the most heroic. As a founding member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, the three-guitar band that defined Southern rock in the early 70s, Rossington played with a swagger and a lightness of touch. He liked to play gritty, but also, as he put it, play “pretty”. His instrument of choice was a 1959 Les Paul Standard, which he used on every one of the band’s first five landmark albums. And in those albums were so many great songs that he wrote with singer Ronnie Van Zant – most famous of all, Sweet Home Alabama. But Gary Rossington was more than simply a gifted musician. He was also a man of extraordinary character. In the wake of the worst…

As guitarists, we’ve all been in a situation where we know what’s coming up but our minds go blank, and this probably applies to soloing above most other musical situations. So here we’re turning our attention to just that – soloing skills. If it sounds intimidating, don’t let it. This isn’t an out-and-out shredfest. Instead, we want to give you the catalyst you need to approach taking a solo with confidence. We’re looking at a few different styles of music, and identifying some strategies you can adopt for each. Of course, the truth is that each strategy can be applied to almost any style of music, which means there are endless possibilities here. Plug in and rock out with our tab lessons and backing tracks. 1 BLUES: EASY PENTATONICS bit.ly/tg370audio…

This month we’re looking at the RHCP anthem Otherside, one of the band’s most successful singles. The track was recorded live in the studio with no click track so the original tempo ranges from 123 to 127bpm. However, to keep things even we’ve chosen a steady 124bpm for our audio jam track. In terms of harmony, Otherside is in the key of A minor, with the main guitar riffs being built out of the notes of this scale. Only two actual chords are played – G and A – with the latter marking a brief foray into A major and brightening up the end of the verses. Still, Frusciante’s guitar lines harmonise with Flea’s bassline, implying chords as the song progresses. We’ve shown chord names over the tab to help…

1 BEETRONICS SEABEE HARMOCHORUS It’s undoubtedly one of the most expensive modulation pedals we’ll see this year, but it’s also one of the most intriguing, introducing the concept of harmochorus pitch-shifting modulation. The Seabee has three modes dedicated to this, plus another three to the chorus. With 16 onboard presets and digital control over delay time, there’s plenty to explore here and get warbly with. And it looks fantastic, too! £409www.beetronicsfx.com 2 FENDER X WRANGLER DENIM CASE There is a place beyond triple denim that few dare to go; but here is your chance, and you can take your Tele or Strat with you. Fender’s second collaborative collection with Wrangler also includes guitar straps, picks, and clothing, but this is undoubtedly the statement piece. Available in indigo or black, there’s…

Four years into Fender’s Acoustasonic project, it still seems to be a misunderstood guitar series in some quarters. It’s not a best of both worlds acoustic/electric guitar; such a proposition would only disappoint. Instead we see it as an electro-acoustic guitar with enhanced flexibility and playability. The American Jazzmaster model was the most successful example of that to date – so how does its Mexican brethren fare? There’s no body sensor pickup here like on the US model, bringing the pickup sources down from three to two: an undersaddle piezo and a noiseless magnetic. Here the latter is a Shawbucker rather than the Tele’s single-coil. There are four less ‘voices’ available via the blade selector as a result; six here, grouped into pairs and selectable with the Blend knob to…

In a genre that has historically been dominated by straight white males, Meet Me @ The Altar has a simple yet sizable mission: to dismantle rock’s stereotypes riff by riff. Their debut album Past / / Present / / Future is the very tool with which they intend to do so – and for guitarist Téa Campbell, a Reverend Billy Corgan Z-One signature model will also come in handy for the fight. Kitted out with Corgan’s star-etched Railhammer Humcutters, it boasts what she describes as “that perfect balance in tonality where you can hear all the notes, but it’s still really heavy” – essential qualities for a guitarist who juggles rhythm and lead roles. Like many her age, Téa’s interest in the guitar was sparked by the pop-punk boom of…

It’s a familiar story: the Californian child of immigrant parents turns guitar playing upside down with a radical approach to two-handed tapping. Yvette Young’s music is nothing like Edward Van Halen’s, but her story is similar. Self-taught on guitar after a background in classical music, they both found their own idiosyncratic approaches by fearlessly chasing the sounds in their heads. Like Van Halen, Yvette Young’s technical wizardry is disguised by an emphasis on memorable songs. For a band sometimes categorised as math rock, Covet are remarkably accessible. “It’s guitar music, but it’s for everyone,” says Young, Covet’s leader and mastermind. “I just love catchy music, stuff that makes you want to dance.” The new album, Catharsis, zips by in under 30 minutes. “I purposely made a lot of these songs…

On June 19, 2021, Enter Shikari headlined the Saturday night of Download’s 10,000-capacity Pilot Festival at Donington Park. After an excruciating 20-month battle with writer’s block, it was the catalytic event that reignited frontman and principal songwriter Rou Reynolds’ creative impulses, and which set the electro-rock four-piece barrelling forth on a trajectory towards their ecstatic new album A Kiss For The Whole Word. “The thrill of suddenly being able to write music again, which is something that’s been such a staple for me, made the music come out in quite an excited fashion,” says Rou, who seems perceptibly relieved and reinvigorated by having 12 new tracks to demonstrate his return to form. “It is all quite energised, a lot of it’s up-tempo and there’s a lot of positivity on this…

The Pixies never had a Top 10 single or a No 1 album, but the cult Boston four-piece came to define the sound of alternative rock in the late 80s and beyond. They caught the ear of some of rock’s most established figures and galvanised the next generation’s leading acts such as Nirvana. More importantly, their debut full-length LP Surfer Rosa included the angular, catchy number we’re looking at here, Where Is My Mind?. Recorded in 1987 at Q Division Studios in Boston, Black Francis left his trusty Japanese Fender Telecaster in its case, opting to go acoustic. The electric comes from the Pixies’ avant-garde guitarist Joey Santiago, who played his trademark 70s re-issue Les Paul Goldtop. For strummers, it’s largely a barre chord-based affair, so, though it’s a relatively…

David Grissom might not quite be a household name like John Mayer or Carlos Santana but he’s very much a guitarist’s guitarist. David has been a big part of the PRS family since, well, since the start of the company in 1985 when, as a hot-shot Austin, Texas-based guitarist, he traded in a 1959 Fender Esquire for a new-fangled PRS Standard in sea foam green. His hot blues-based style was soon informing Clash-favourite Joe Ely, then he became a part of John Mellencamp’s band and toured and recorded with many, many artists from the Dixie Chicks to the Allman Brothers. Along the way he ‘invented’ the first vintage-aimed PRS guitar, the McCarty Model, which, after he’d gigged it for some 15 years evolved into the DGT (David Grissom Tremolo) in…

Historically, the Eurovision Song Contest might not always have made for essential viewing for those of a guitary persuasion. But this year, it’ll be worth tuning into the grand finale on May 13, if only to catch Simone Dow, of prog-metal quintet Voyager, tearing it up for Australia on what is surely the first 7-string guitar to have ever graced the competition. Honorary Europeans for the occasion, Voyager will be bringing the fretboard heat to the Liverpool event with their genre-busting track Promise. Stuffed with chewy dual-guitar riffs, eighties pop synths, earwormy hooks, melodic soloing and – last but not least – a keytar, the adventurous tune packs everything you could possibly hope for into three minutes of pure Eurovision excess. “We just can’t wait to showcase what Voyager is…

METALLICA INTERVIEW “SAD BUT TRUE IS THE CLASSIC REFERENCE FOR METALLICA BEING SLOW BUT HEAVY”GREG FIDELMAN Greg Fidelman first worked with Metallica as engineer on the 2008 album Death Magnetic – a result of his long association with that album’s producer Rick Rubin. Since the late 90s, Greg has served as engineer on numerous albums produced by Rubin, including System Of A Down’s self-tilted debut, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication, the posthumous Johnny Cash release American V: A Hundred Highways and Black Sabbath’s final album 13. It was on the 2011 album Lulu, Metallica’s collaboration with Lou Reed, that Greg took on the role of co-producer alongside guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich. He has continued in this capacity on 2016’s Hardwired... To Self-Destruct, 2020’s live album S&M2…

Find your videos here bit.ly/tg370audio CREEPING DEATH This song is a prime example of the down-picking prowess on show in Metallica’s back catalogue. The section we are focusing on outlines an E5 powerchord by alternating between the open sixth-string root note and the 5th/octave of the root on the fourth and fifth strings. To get the rhythmic definition and shape you’ll need to palm-mute the notes on the sixth string and leave the notes on the fourth and fifth strings unmuted. Each phrase concludes with a single-note figure with picked notes played on the 2nd and 3rd frets of the fifth string. This is concluded by another picked note at the 2nd fret, a fast hammer-on to the 3rd fret, and pull-offs to the 2nd fret and open…

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Blackstar seems to have a never-ending conveyor belt of new and exciting products to tempt us with, many of which like the award-winning St James amplifiers, fall into the ‘why didn’t we think of that?’ category. Blackstar’s Amped 1 was a perfect addition for pedalboard users, putting real amp tones into a compact and powerful package. Now, the Amped 1 concept has been taken to its logical conclusion, with the addition of high-quality built-in effects. COMBINES QUALITY EFFECTS WITH VALVE-LIKE TONES Amped 2 keeps the same good looks as its predecessor, with a candy-apple red anodised fascia and typical Blackstar clean looks and graphics, underneath which there’s a tough steel chassis enclosing seriously high quality circuit boards. The list of features keeps coming: an integrated front-end drive pedal with three…